The_Navaho__A_Brief_Overview

The Navaho: A Brief Overview The Navajo The Navajo religion is, like most Native American religions, based on animism, or the belief that the earth is a living organism and it, and all of its parts (such as trees, rocks and animals), has a soul or spirit. Moreover, the Earth has organs and blood, the same as a person or animal. Certain geological formations might be her stomach or her heart, and rivers are her arteries. Thus, they believe that if too much of the Earth is taken away (by mining, for example), the Earth will die, just as a human would die if his organs were removed. This has led to some serious disputes between the Navajos and the American government, especially over the use of Black Mesa, one of the spiritually significant areas of Navajo land, for coal mining. The traditional Navajo territory is bordered by four sacred mountains and four rivers. Due to their deep connection to their land, the Navajo beliefs are “site-specific,” that is, they consider certain places to be holy and of special spiritual significance. The biggest area of holy land is their territory, which they call “Din’e Be keyah” (the Navajo call themselves Dine, or The People). They believe this navajos, navajo, leaders, land, american, sherman, reservation, americans, barboncito, world, traditional, thus, sent, one, earth, treaty, president, people, met, living, live, lands, holy, government, general, believe, asked, agreed, about, 1868, worlds, washington, wanted, upset, tour, told